Language/Mandarin-chinese/Grammar/Separable-verbs

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What are verb-object phrases (Separable verbs)?

Hello everybody!

In today's lesson, we will teach you how to use certain kinds of verbs that still need a complement.

"Separable verbs" get their name from their ability to "separate" into two parts (a verb part and an object part), with other words in between. In fact, you could also simply call separable verbs "verb-object phrases."

Feel free to edit this wiki page, if you think it can be improved.

Object verbs

If the verb 说 (shuō) "to speak" is followed by a complement, it is used alone:

说汉语. shuō hàn yǔ

I speak Chinese.

But if we simply mean "talk", we must add a "standard complement ": 话 huà word.

To say "He speaks.", we have to use 他说话 (Tā shuō huà) and not simply 他说 (Tā shuō).

We also have already seen "write" 写 (xiě) which requires the standard complement 字 (zì):

她写字 (Tā xiě zì).

She writes.

Attention, it is absolutely necessary to remove the standard complement when another complement is specified.

The following sentence is therefore false: 他说话汉语. (Tā shuō huà hànyǔ)

A verb-object may be heard alone, but in this case the complement is implied:

(汉语)我会说,不会写. [(hàn yǔ) wǒ huì shuì, bú huì xiě]

(Chinese) I can speak it, but not write it.

Other Separable Verbs

Chinese	Pinyin	Translation
上课	shàng kè	to have a class
住院	zhù yuàn	to be hospitalised
发烧	fā shāo	to get a fever
吃饭	chī fàn	to eat
开学	kāi xué	to start a new term of school
开车	kāi chē	to drive
打的	dǎ dī	to get a taxi
游泳	yóu yǒng	to swim
看病	kàn bìng	to see a doctor
睡觉	shuì jiào	to sleep
聊天	liáo tiān	to chat
说话	shuō huà	to speak
起床	qǐ chuáng	to get up